1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to catastrophic event-survivable data recorders. In particular, this invention relates to catastrophic event-survivable video recording systems that employ video data compression and data recorders such as commercially available flight data recorders.
2. Description of the Related Art
Accident investigation is often costly, time consuming, and may be inconclusive. This is particularly true of catastrophic accidents involving vehicles such as aircraft, trains and ships. Other examples of catastrophic accidents in which accident investigation may be difficult include explosions occurring within facilities such as chemical plants and oil production or processing facilities. Many times such accidents may result in near to complete property destruction and loss of life. Thus, it is often difficult for investigators to determine factors which contributed to the cause of a particular accident.
In the field of aviation, flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders have long been used to record information on aircraft systems and crew activities up to the time of occurrence of a catastrophic event. However, even with access to this information it may still be difficult for accident investigators to determine the cause of an aircraft crash, as when attempting to determine the source of a catastrophic explosion occurring in mid-flight. In the case of such an explosion, information from conventional flight data and cockpit voice recorders typically provide little, if any, information which would indicate the source of such an explosion. This problem may be further exacerbated when surviving components of a destroyed aircraft are very small, and/or lie in inaccessible areas such as deep water. Under such conditions, it may become very costly to recover and piece together destroyed portions of the aircraft in an effort to determine the source of an explosion or other failure.
At the present time, few alternatives exist to assist in the investigation of accidents involving catastrophic events such as mid-air explosions, with the exception of very expensive methods used to simulate and investigate such accidents in order to determine factors contributing to the accidents. Such expensive and time-consuming methods include, for example, computer simulations, re-enactments and re-assembly of destroyed components such as an aircraft fuselage.